Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Canyon De Chelly and the Navajo Nation

We spent a week exploring the Navajo Nation.  We camped at Canyon De Chelly in the National Monument Campground.  The National Monument Visitor Center and Campground are located at the mouth of the Canyon.  It was an eye-opening experience.   The Canyon itself is a natural wonder with high escarpments and a cottonwood tree-dotted floor, but this isn't the complete story.  

The Navajo still live in the Canyon, passing the land on from generation to generation through the maternal side of the family.  Yes, the Navajo women are the caretakers of the Canyon and the greater Navajo Nation.  

The Canyon is a geographical marvel comprised of 83,840 acres (131 sq mi; 339 km2) that includes the floors and rims of the three major canyons: de Chelly, del Muerto, and Monument.  These canyons were created by streams from the Chuska Mountains.   It has been continuously occupied since  Ancestral Puebloan times.

Originally from 1300 to the early 1700s, the Canyon was occupied by the Hopi Indians.   Their presence can still be felt throughout the Canyon by the various cliff dwellings that remain.  The only way to visit the Canyon floor is through a Navajo-guided tour.   This tour was one of the major highlights of our 80-day trip out West.  In addition to seeing the beauty of the Canyon, we learned of the history and the battles that were fought there.  It is a story of tragedy and rebirth. 


Kit Carson of Frontier Fame was ordered during the Civil War to round up the Navajo because there was a perception that they were aiding the Confederate cause.  At Canyon De Chelly, over 3000 Navajo were rounded up by the US Army after a scorched earth campaign, then a siege of Spider Rock.    They were then forced to walk 130 miles to a reservation in New Mexico, which came to be known as the Long Walk.    After the Civil War, around 1000 returned to the Navajo Nation created by treaty. 

One Navajo elder said of the Long Walk: "By slow stages, we traveled eastward to present Gallup and Shush Bìtó, Bear Spring, which is now called Fort Wingate.  You ask how they treated us?  If there was room, the soldiers put the women and children on the wagons.  Some even let them ride behind them on their horses.  I have never been able to understand people who killed you one day and on the next played with your children ...[9]"

Today, from the 1000 who returned, the Navajo Nation has grown to over 200k souls.  The largest Indian Nation in North America includes over 17000 square miles with major parts of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico within its borders.  Larger than 10 states, it is a cultural treasure.  

Standing in line at a Tour Office, two Navajo men were talking to each other in their native tongue.  In English, in a joking manner, if you're wondering what we're talking about, it's you.   I just said I have been talked about by worse people.  We then had a good laugh and went on our tour to the canyon floor with them.  It was a magical experience.



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